Monthly Archives: January 2017

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It’s day 20 and today peace feels like a luxury that the poor and oppressed don’t have access to. I started this project to spend more time in the shop and as a way to transform anger and apathy into compassion and action. I have made twenty peace signs so far and I don’t think I know what peace is anymore. In a world where violence is the language of power what is peace? Today’s peace is a chop saw blade and yellow and blue paint. 20 down 345 to go.

Day 18 has been a bit of struggle. It’s probably the first day so far that I seriously thought about abandoning the whole project. But this happened instead. It’s poplar with red and black paint. 347 to go.

Sometimes the pursuit of peace seems like tilting at windmills. Today’s Peace is made from two pieces from the scrap pile. The blades of the windmill were cut from a piece of pine shiplap painted green. The base is a piece of mystery wood also painted green. The peace is painted on the blades with white poster paint. 17 days of peace down 348 to go.

Today’s peace was once a part of a picnic table crushed by ice falling from a roof. I think the wood is cedar. I took a 1 inch thick piece of wood cut it into a small circle and hacked it with a chisel until it was wavy. I added a peace sign and so ends day 16.

Starting week three of peace. Day 15! Today’s peace is not made of wood. It’s constucted from a pre owned drum head and stylish duct tape. I had this old head sitting around and thought why not? I had a much more complicated vision but this simple version works. I have a 14 inch tom head, another bass head and a roll of diamond plate duct tape. So I may do this or something like it again.

It’s day 14 and I was thinking about the finality of violence versus a purposeful declarative peace. Today’s peace is made from scrap maple. I drew an exclamation point with pencil and cut out the peace sign on the scroll saw. I originally had this as one piece but It looked like a peace sign wearing a hat not an artist rendering of an exclamation point. Seperating it made it look more exclamation point-like. Though now looking at it, the top is starting to look like a distorted outline of the state of Vermont. Whatever works. It’s another peace sign.

It’s Friday the Thirteenth, which means I am on the verge of marking two weeks of peace. 13 days. a bakers dozen of peace. Today’s Peace is made from some rough cut pine used as paneling in a small shed. I drew the circle and fuse with a ball point pen and cut it on the scroll saw. I painted the peace bomb, fuse, and explosion with poster paint.

On the twelfth day of peace my true love gave to me a peace sign in a ship-lap guitar. This peace sign began life as two pieces of pine ship-lap that I glued together. I drew out the outline of a guitar body and and cut a crude imitation of a Gibson guitar, painted it blue, then black, accidentally splattered it with orange spray paint and then sanded it.

11 days of peace. I found more 1/4″ poplar! I can’t remember why I have so much! I cut out a small circle and lightly sanded the edges. I cut the circle in half and then cut a 30 degree wedge from each half circle. After making the cuts I arranged the 4 pieces so that the space between the wedges would form the shape of the peace sign. I wanted to add contrast and I had some old 1/4″ red cedar closet liner so I cut that into strips and filled the spaces with the cedar.